Undergraduate Chemistry Research Fund

Chemistry majors count on Madison’s exceptional undergraduate research experience. Help them present their findings at national professional conferences.

Hands-on research and presenting scientific findings go hand in hand. They are vital to lifelong success and to addressing the problems that most vex society.

Your gift to the Undergraduate Chemistry Student Research Fund helps provide the resources undergraduate researchers need, including faculty oversight, chemicals and small specialty lab equipment. Most exciting, your gift sends these chemistry majors to present their research findings at national chemistry research conferences and to witness established researchers do the same.

“Our students get to see the veterans argue about whether their conclusions are right or wrong,” says Chemistry Department Head Donna Amenta. That vetting by the scientific community is a vital—and inspiring—part of the scientific process. “In my student days, my mentor said to me, “isn't it wonderful to see giants lock horns?’” That’s the experience Amenta wants to make sure JMU undergraduates receive.

“So we get a couple of hotel rooms and pack all of the men into one and the women into another. We send as many seniors and juniors as we can afford who have earned the opportunity through the quality of their work,” she says. “That’s when their future career and research direction really begin to take shape.”

Your gift to the Undergraduate Chemistry Student Research Fund will ensure that JMU’s hallmark undergraduate research experience continues in top form and will enable many more students to participate. Please give and help to:

send undergraduates to present their findings at national research conferences

send faculty mentors to conferences along with undergraduates

offer undergraduate research stipends for the summer

purchase lab chemicals and small specialty equipment

ensure that students have hands-on research opportunities

ensure that students have access to sophisticated instrumentation that students at most universities don't get to use until graduate school

Together, by combining our vision and talents in the Department of Chemistry, we can ensure that Madison students get the early start that qualifies them ahead of the research curve to enter graduate school, research labs, the teaching profession, the workforce or anywhere else they seek to go to boost America's culture of innovation and discovery and solve the real-world problems that face society.

That’s how the national model of the Engaged University operates. Your gift makes it possible.